It was nearly a fortnight after Colonel Elliot's death that Jeff Ironside went to the stable somewhat suddenly one morning, saddled his mare, and, without a word to anyone, rode away.
Granny Grimshaw was the only witness of his departure, and she turned from the kitchen window with a secret smile and nod.
It was an autumn morning of mist and sunshine. The beech trees shone golden overhead, and the robins trilled loudly from the clematis-draped hedges. Jeff rode briskly, with too set a purpose to bestow any attention upon these things. He took a short cut across his own land and entered the grounds belonging to the Place by a side drive seldom used.
Thence he rode direct to the front door of the great Georgian house and boldly demanded admittance.
The footman who opened to him looked him up and down interrogatively. "Miss Elliot is at home, but I don't know if she will see anyone," he said uncompromisingly.
"Ask her!" said Jeff tersely. "My name is Ironside."
While the man was gone he took the mare to a yew tree that shadowed the drive at a few yards' distance and tied her to it. There was an air of grim resolution about all his actions. This accomplished, he returned to the great front door.
As he reached it there came the sound of light, hastening feet within, and in a moment the half-open door was thrown back. Doris herself, very slim and pale, but withal very queenly in her deep mourning, came forth with outstretched hand to greet him.
"But why did they leave you here?" she said. "Please come in!"
He followed her in with scarcely a word.
She led him down a long oak passage to a room that was plainly the library, and there in her quick, gracious way she turned and faced him.
"I am very pleased to see you, Mr. Ironside. I was going to write to you to thank you again for all your kindness, but lately--there has been so much to think about--so much to do. I know you will understand. Do sit down!"
But Jeff remained squarely on his feet. "I hope you have quite recovered from your fall?" he said.
"Quite, thank you." She smiled faintly. "It seems such an age ago. Hector came home quite safely too." She broke off short, paused as if seeking for words, then said rather abruptly, "I shall never go hunting again."
"You mean not this year?" suggested Jeff.
She looked at him, and he saw that her smile Was piteous. "No, I mean never. Everything is to be sold. Haven't you heard?"
He nodded. "Yes, I had heard. I hoped it wasn't true."
"Yes, it is true." Her two hands fastened very tightly upon the back of a chair. There was something indescribably pathetic in the action. She seemed on the verge of saying more, but in the end she did not say it. She just stood looking at him with the wide grey eyes that tried so hard not to be tragic.
Jeff stood looking back with great sturdiness and not much apparent feeling. He offered no word of condolence or sympathy. Only after a very decided pause he said, "I wonder what you will do?"
"I am going to London," she said.
"Soon?" Jeff's voice was curt, almost gruff.
"Yes, very soon." She hesitated momentarily, then went on rapidly, as if it were a relief to tell someone. "My father's life was insured. It has left my stepmother enough to live on; but, of course, not here. The place is mortgaged up to the hilt. I have nothing at all. I have got to make my own living."
"You?" said Jeff.
She smiled again faintly, "Yes, I. What is there in that? Lots of women work for their living."
"You are not going to work for yours," he said.
She thrust the chair from her with a quick little movement of the hands. "I would begin to-morrow--if I only knew how. But I don't--yet. I've got to look about me for a little. I am going first to a cousin at Kensington."
"Who doesn't want you," said Jeff.
She looked at him in sharp surprise. "Who--who told you that?"
"You did," he said doggedly. "At least, you told Mr. Chesyl--in my presence."
"Ah, I remember!" She uttered a tremulous little laugh. "That was the day I caught you eavesdropping and ordered you off your own ground."
"It was," said Jeff. "I heard several things that day, and I guessed--other things." He paused, still looking straight at her. "Miss Elliot," he said, "wouldn't it be easier for you to marry than to work for your living?"
The pretty brows went up in astonishment. "Oh!" she said, in quick confusion. "You heard that too?"
"Wouldn't it be easier?" persisted Jeff in his slow, stubborn way.
She shook her head swiftly and vehemently. "I shall never marry Mr. Chesyl," she said with determination.
"Where is he?" asked Jeff.
The soft colour rose in her face at the question. She looked away from him for the first time. "I don't quite know where he is. I believe he is up north somewhere--in Scotland."
"He knows what has been happening here?" questioned Jeff.
She made a slight movement as of protest. "No doubt," she said in a low voice.
Jeff's square jaw hardened. Abruptly he thrust Chesyl out of the conversation. "It doesn't matter," he said. "That isn't what I came to talk about. May I tell you just what I have come for? Will you give me a patient hearing?"
She turned to him again in renewed surprise. "Of course," she said.
His dark eyes were upon her. "It may not please you," he said slowly, "though I ask you to believe that it is not my intention to give you offence."
"But, of course, I know you would not," she said.
Jeff's fingers clenched upon his riding-switch. He spoke with difficulty, but not without a certain native dignity that made him impressive. "I have come," he said, "just to say to you that if it is possible that no one in your own world is wanting you, I am wanting you. All that I have is absolutely at your disposal. I heard you say--that day--that you would like to be a farmer's wife. Well--if you really meant it--you have your opportunity."
"Mr. Ironside!" She was gazing at him in wide-eyed amazement.
A dark flush rose in his swarthy face under her eyes, "I had to say it," he said with heavy deliberation, "though I know I'm only hammering nails into my own coffin. I had to take my only chance of telling you. Of course, I know you won't listen. I'm not of your sort--respectable enough, but not quite--not quite--" He broke off grimly, and for an instant his teeth showed clenched upon his lower lip. "But if by any chance, when everything else has failed," resolutely he went on, "you could bring yourself to think of me--in that way, I shall always be ready, quite ready, for you. That's what I came to say."
He straightened himself upon the words, and made as if he would turn and leave her. But Doris was too quick for him. She moved like a flash. She came between him and the door. "Please--please," she said, "you mustn't go yet!"
He stopped instantly and she stood before him breathing quickly, her hand upon the door.
She did not speak again very quickly; she was plainly trying to master considerable agitation.
Jeff waited immovably with eyes unvaryingly upon her. "I don't want to hurry you," he said at last. "I know, of course, what your answer will be. But I can wait for it."
That faint, fugitive smile of hers went over her face. She took her hand from the door.
"You--you haven't been very--explicit, have you?" she said. "Are you--are you being just kind to me, Mr. Ironside, like--like Hugh Chesyl?"
Her voice quivered as she asked the question, but her eyes met his with direct steadfastness.
He lowered his own very suddenly. "No," he said. "I wouldn't insult you by being kind. I shouldn't ask you to marry me if I didn't love you with all my heart and soul."
The words came quickly, with something of a burning quality. She made a slight movement as if she were taken by surprise.
After a moment she spoke. "There are two kinds of love," she said. "There's the big, unselfish kind--the real thing; and there's the other--the kind that demands everything, and even then, perhaps, is never satisfied. You hardly know me well enough to--to care for me in the first big way, do you? You don't even know if I'm worth it."
"I beg your pardon," said Jeff Ironside. "I think I do know you well enough for that. Anyhow, if you could bring yourself to marry me, I should be satisfied. The right to take care of you--make you comfortable--wait on you--that's all I'm asking. That would be enough for me--more than I've dared to hope for."
"That would make you happy?" she asked.
He kept his eyes lowered. "It would be--enough," he repeated.
She uttered a sudden quick sigh. "But wouldn't you rather marry a woman who was in love with you in just the ordinary way?" she said.
"No," said Jeff curtly.
"It would be much better for you," she protested.
He smiled a grim smile. "I am the best judge of that," he said.
She held out her hand to him. "Mr. Ironside, tell me honestly, wouldn't you despise me if I married you in that way--taking all and giving nothing?"
He crushed her hand in his. The red blood rose to his forehead. He looked at her for a moment--only a moment--and instantly looked away again.
"No," he said, "I shouldn't."
"I should despise myself," said Doris.
"I don't know why you should," he said.
She smiled again with lips that quivered. "No, you don't understand. You're too big for me altogether. I can't say 'Yes,' but I feel very highly honoured all the same. You'll believe that, won't you?"
"Why can't you say 'Yes'?" asked Jeff.
She hesitated momentarily. "You see, I'm afraid I don't care for you--like that," she said.
"Does that matter?" said Jeff.
She looked at him, her hand still in his. "Don't you think so?"
"No, I don't," he said, "unless you think you couldn't be happy."
"I was thinking of you," she said gently.
"Of me?" He looked surprised for an instant, and again his eyes met hers in a quick glance. "If you're going to think of me," he said, "you'll do it. I have told you, you needn't be afraid of my expecting too much."
But she shook her head. "I should be much more afraid of taking too much from you," she said. "The little I could offer would never satisfy you."
"Yes it would," he insisted. "I'm only asking to stand between you and trouble. It's all I want in life."
Again his eyes were upon her, dark and resolute. His hand held hers in a steady grip. For the first time her own resolution began to falter.
"Let me write to you, Mr. Ironside," she said at last, with a vague idea of softening a refusal that had become inexplicably hard.
"Write and say 'No'?" said Jeff.
She smiled a little, but her eyes filled with sudden tears. "You make it very hard for me to say 'No,'" she said.
"I would like to make it impossible," he said.
"Even when I have told you that I can't--that I don't--love you in the ordinary way?" she said almost pleadingly.
"I don't want to be loved in the ordinary way," he answered doggedly.
"I should be a perpetual disappointment to you," she said.
"I would rather have even that than--nothing," said Jeff.
One of the tears ran over and fell upon their clasped hands. "In fact, you want me at any price," she said.
"At any price," said Jeff.
She bent her head and choked back a sob. "And no one else wants me at all," she whispered.
He stooped towards her. Perhaps for her peace of mind it was as well that she did not see the sudden fire that blazed in his deep-set eyes as he did so.
"So you'll change your mind," he said, after a moment, to the bowed head. "You'll have me--you will?"
She caught back another sob and said nothing.
He straightened himself sharply. "Miss Elliot, if it's going to make you miserable, you had better send me away. I'll go--if it's for that."
He would have released her hand, but it tightened very suddenly upon his. "No, don't go--don't go!" she said.
"But you're crying," muttered Jeff uneasily.
She gave a big gulp and raised her head. The tears were running down her cheeks, but she smiled at him bravely notwithstanding. "I believe I should cry--much more--if you were to go now," she told him, with a quaint effort at humour.
Jeff Ironside put a strong grip upon himself. His heart was thumping like the strokes of a heavy hammer. "Then you'll have me?" he said.
She put her other hand, with a very winning gesture of confidence, into his. "I don't see how I can help it," she said. "You've knocked down all my obstacles. But you do understand, don't you? You won't--won't--"
"Abuse your trust? No, never!" said Jeff Ironside. "I will die by my own hand sooner."
"Ah, I can't help liking you," Doris said impulsively, as if in explanation or excuse. "You're so big."
"Thank you," Jeff said very earnestly. "And you won't cry any more?"
She uttered a whimsical little laugh. "But I wasn't crying for myself," she said, as she dried her eyes. "I was crying for you."
"Well, you mustn't," said Jeff. "You have given me all I want--much more than I dared to hope for." He paused a moment, then abruptly, "You won't think better of it when I'm gone, will you?" he said. "You won't write and say you have changed your mind?"
She gave him her hand again with an air of comradeship. "It's a bargain, Mr. Ironside," she said, with gentle dignity. "A very one-sided one, I fear, but still--a bargain."
"I beg your pardon," murmured Jeff.